Conclusion

Acquiring, processing and standardizing geospatial data requires technical skills and considerable time. The o_ceandatr_ R package helps lower the barrier to entry for ocean‐focused geospatial work by providing a single package to acquire and process many widely used datasets. Processed data is stored in the SpatRast format of the terra R package (Hijmans 2025); and vector data in sf (Pebesma 2018) format, facilitating mapping or further spatial analysis. We recognize that in many cases, data that are not directly accessible via oceandatr might be required. The get_data_in_grid() function is designed for these cases since it can process arbitrary spatial data. Along with the get_boundary() and get_grid() functions, get_data_in_grid() can be used in any spatial context, not just for the marine environment.

While some of the data that oceandatr provides access to are available through other R packages or direct download from websites, oceandatr provides a single access point for many of the most commonly used marine datasets. In addition, the functions provide a simpler interface to some of the datasets than existing packages. The oceandatr package is also the only R package, to our knowledge, providing direct download of spatial subsets of the latest global terrain model (GEBCO Bathymetric Compilation Group 2026), which is widely used in marine data analysis.

We have focused on providing access to data commonly used in marine spatial analysis, such as bathymetry, geomorphology, and fishing data. While there are several other datasets that are widely used, oceandatr is restricted to data that are open access and can be easily downloaded from the internet or are small enough to be included within the associated oceandatrsets data package (Flower 2026). These criteria currently exclude the IUCN (IUCN 2024) and Aquamaps (Kaschner et al. 2019) species distribution maps, which are widely used in spatial planning, because both ask users to contact the data authors before use. However, once obtained, these data can be processed for modeling or planning work using the get_data_in_grid() function.

The oceandatr package is currently being used by the authors in marine spatial planning contexts to rapidly and reproducibly obtain standardized data for spatial prioritization, as exemplified in the first case study. The package will therefore be continuously improved to increase the number of datasets directly accessible, improve data processing efficiency, and add further documentation.